Ohio conservationist gets paid to protect forests through carbon credits, but critics question program’s true climate impact

After decades of restoring native forest ecosystems in southeast Ohio without compensation, David Funk is finally earning money for his conservation work through an innovative carbon credit program. The Nature Conservancy approached Funk because of his extensive woodland preservation efforts in the region, creating what he calls “a perfect fit” for their new initiative.

The Family Forest Carbon Program offers a novel approach to climate action by paying private landowners to keep their trees standing rather than harvesting them for timber. The program then sells the additional carbon sequestered by these growing forests as carbon credits to companies looking to offset their emissions. For conservationists like Funk, it represents a long-awaited financial incentive for protecting America’s private forests, which comprise about 60% of the nation’s woodland.

However, the program faces mounting criticism from environmental experts who question whether these forest-based carbon credits actually reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. Critics argue that the credits may simply allow companies to continue polluting while claiming carbon neutrality, without delivering the genuine emission reductions needed to combat climate change. They point to broader issues with forestry carbon programs, which have historically struggled with problems like impermanent storage, difficult measurement of actual carbon capture, and questionable additionality—meaning the forest protection might have happened anyway without the carbon credit incentive.

The debate highlights a larger challenge in carbon markets: balancing the need to incentivize conservation with ensuring that climate solutions deliver real, measurable environmental benefits rather than just accounting tricks.